Cricket: Keep calm and carry on, says England coach Bayliss

ADELAIDE (Reuters) - Coach Trevor Bayliss thinks England left some “scars” on the Australia team during the second Ashes test and can still enjoy success Down Under despite being 2-0 down with three matches to play.

England raised hopes of a remarkable comeback victory when they managed to get on top of their hosts on day three and four of the day-night contest in Adelaide, only to slump to a 120-run defeat on Wednesday.

As holders of the Ashes, England would at least need to win two and draw one of the remaining tests in Perth, Melbourne and Sydney to take the urn back home with them.

Suggesting there would be no major changes to the team for Perth, Bayliss said his players just needed to figure out how to be competitive for longer periods.

“I don’t think there is a real need to panic, the guys have shown the capabilities we have got. We have just got to find a way to do it for longer,” he said.

“In both test matches we have competed for a couple of days but to win against Australia in Australia we have to compete for longer than that.

“All of our players have competed at different times and showed they can bat but we just have to do it for longer.”

Bayliss admitted that batting was more of a concern than the bowling with not a single Englishman yet to make a century in four innings where the tourists managed scores of 302, 195, 227 and 233.

“You have to take 20 wickets but, to put pressure on the opposition, you have to score more than 220 in each innings,” he added.

England did have Australia rattled in the night session on day three when James Anderson, Stuart Broad and Chris Woakes got the ball moving around under the lights.

“We have got a few scars there with the Australian team,” Bayliss told the BBC.

“There will be a few who have missed out and a few who will be nervous. They’ve got four good bowlers and we’ve shown we can compete with them for a period of time.”

Other positives for England were a solid debut from Craig Overton, who looked good with ball, bat and in the field, and a rare good performance outside England from Woakes, who took 4-36 in the second innings.

Bayliss clearly does not think that any more practice is the key for England’s batsmen and on Thursday named only Moeen Ali from the side that lost in Adelaide in an England XI to face a Cricket Australia XI in a two-day tour match in Perth.

The rest of the team is made up of the squad members who did not play in the second test and six players from the England Lions team, who are training in the city.